Housing, healthcare need less red tape to lower costs: Hickenlooper
Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper delivers a 20-minute campaign speech at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair August 10, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
The housing bill that just became law doesn’t go far enough to bring down U.S. costs, and lawmakers at all levels of governments need to do more, Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., told CNBC.
Hickenlooper, a onetime presidential candidate who says he isn’t running again in 2028, spoke with CNBC on the sidelines of an event in Denver. He highlighted housing and healthcare as policy areas where consumers would benefit from governments changing how they interact with the industries.
Areas like affordable housing need not only limits on private equity players, as the new law does, but also fewer administrative hurdles and fewer ways for opponents to stop needed development, Hickenlooper said on the sidelines of an event for Su Teatro, a Chicano theater company that’s been in Denver for decades. He lamented that housing opponents have too easy of a road to delaying development.
“We’ve given every anybody who wants to raise a finger all the tools they need to stop the housing development in its tracks, and they can litigate. They can do this. They have all these all these processes that really add cost to the homes,” Hickenlooper said.
Hickenlooper issued his prescriptions for what ails the country as a first-term senator representing a state that’s home to one of the most competitive U.S. House races. He began his career as a geologist before starting a brewery business in downtown Denver, then becoming the city’s mayor, Colorado governor and now a senator. He declared a run for president in 2020, but dropped out before any primaries took place.
The CNBC All-America Economic Survey found that housing costs are the top issue of concern for voters ages 18 to 34.
Hickenlooper pointed to the Dallas-Fort Worth area as a potential template for streamlining homebuilding, as it has one building code for the entire region.
“If you’re going to include some affordable housing in your housing project, here’s a superfast zoning/building development setup code,” he said.
Hickenlooper on the issues:
On Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.: “She’s getting things done” in Congress and has been very rational about solving problems.
On Immigration and Customs Enforcement: The conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as President Donald Trump has focused on illegal immigration is resonating in Colorado.
“Depending on where you are in this community – we’re 30% Latino here – just mention ICE, right?” he said, noting recent deaths at the hands of ICE agents or employees. “People in this community are going nuts.”
On healthcare costs: He noted costs in the sector increase significantly every year and said pricing is opaque and price comparisons difficult to enact. He cited a 2019 American Medical Association study that characterized about a quarter of healthcare spending, or about $1.35 trillion, as waste.
“If we could get half of that, I mean, this is how you get to universal coverage,” he said. “This is how you actually can solve problems.”
On data centers: He said he supports data centers in theory, and that where they’re nearby, it indicates tech sector activity. But he said he won’t support them unless they don’t increase the cost of electricity, that noise pollution is minimal or zero and that water consumption concerns are settled.
On how Democrats can gain in the midterm election: “We’ve got to hold Trump accountable,” he said. “So pick the two or three things.”
“Cost of living is a good place to start. It allows you to have a sentence about healthcare, a sentence about housing, a sentence about cost of living, and the cost of living takes you into the war” and its effect on prices.
“I’m estimating 40% to 50% of people in Colorado have a hard time at the end of the month, every month,” he said.
On the Trump factor in this year’s election: “Trump is such a mad genius, and he’ll see some something in the in the newspaper one day, and he’ll exaggerate and take it out of context and create it into a mantra, a crusade,” he said. “But right now, when I talk to my friends in the Senate, people from Michigan or people from Iowa … boy, there are a lot of people I know in Iowa that think we’ve got a real chance to win that Senate seat.”
